Question

I’m trying to run a test suite that will handle the jQuery lightbox. Lightbox contains a textarea and a submit button. Before lightbox appears both of these fields are hidden.

But Selenium doesn’t understand the visibility of these element in lightbox. It just shows following error.

And I fill comment box with "Text !!" # features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:333
  Element is not currently visible and so may not be interacted with (Selenium::WebDriver::Error::ElementNotVisibleError)
  [remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20120403-6182-1rd9z23/extensions/[e-mail]/components/command_processor.js:9509:in `unknown'
  [remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20120403-6182-1rd9z23/extensions/[e-mail]/components/command_processor.js:10510:in `unknown'
  [remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20120403-6182-1rd9z23/extensions/[e-mail]/components/command_processor.js:10529:in `unknown'
  [remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20120403-6182-1rd9z23/extensions/[e-mail]/components/command_processor.js:10534:in `unknown'
  [remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20120403-6182-1rd9z23/extensions/[e-mail]/components/command_processor.js:10482:in `unknown'
  (eval):2:in `send'
  (eval):2:in `fill_in'
  ./features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:335:in `/^I fill comment box with "([^"]*)"$/'
  features/courses_flow.feature:21:in `And I fill comment box with "Text !!"'

Answer 1

As a temporary workaround you can allow capybara see hidden elements. I suggest use it with caution and add a special tag and enable it only for certain scenarios:

Before('@ignore-hidden-elements') do
  Capybara.ignore_hidden_elements = true
end